audita/docs/roadmap/policy.md

Licensing Policy Adoption

Last updated: 2026-09-26

Status: Accepted direction; adoption work remains to be implemented. This roadmap defines the target and scope, not a staged implementation plan.

Purpose

Align Audita's licensing documentation with the updated upstream policy set in ../policy, using its Open Source Licensing and Attribution Policy (base version 1.2) and the related documentation and release guidance. Adopt the licensing changes deliberately while retaining Audita's existing policy adaptations.

Audita's selected grant is already GPL-3.0-or-later. This work documents that choice and the applicable upstream attribution; it does not reconsider the license, change application behavior, or replace the entire policy suite.

Current Baseline

As of commit 982b595:

• COPYRIGHT contains the project identity, copyright, GPL-3.0-or-later SPDX expression and grant, warranty disclaimer, and third-party statement. LICENSE contains the full GPLv3 text. These already follow the substantive upstream convention and need no substantive revision.
• There is no docs/policy/oss.md, canonical docs/oss/attribution.md, or local dependency license-text collection.
• The documentation policy lacks ownership and boundary rules for licensing documents. The contributor guide lacks a licensing and attribution reading path.
• The README does not end with the prescribed project-license and attribution statements.
• The release policy and release procedure do not specify the licensing footer. The tag-triggered release workflow publishes Linux binaries and checksums, but does not explicitly use the checked-in release note as its hosted release body.
• Dependencies include ConfigKit, PromptKit and its backend packages, YAML and JSON Schema libraries, and other transitive modules. A complete inventory of relevant components, exact source revisions, and applicable notices has not yet been established; go.mod alone is not that inventory.

Audita publishes source and releases through its Gitea repository. Linux amd64 and arm64 are the supported production targets; macOS arm64 remains best-effort for local development. Successful release completion remains the successful push of the release source and tag, without waiting for CI asset publication.

Targeted End State

Canonical Policy and Ownership

Adopt docs/policy/oss.md from upstream base version 1.2, tailored to Audita's selected grant and distribution. Remove template adoption instructions and replace or remove template-only example and reference links. Retain the actual base version and record the adoption date.

The policy establishes the upstream House Format, maintenance responsibilities, and treatment of concrete exceptions. It identifies the settled project grant and routes readers to the canonical documents for source hosting and release publication mechanics. It does not infer separate licenses for Audita packages.

Merge the licensing-related ownership and boundary guidance from upstream Documentation Policy 1.5 into the local documentation policy:

Document	Owned content
docs/policy/oss.md	Licensing conventions, attribution format, maintenance, and concrete exceptions.
COPYRIGHT	Project identity, copyright statements, SPDX expression, grant, disclaimer, and third-party statement.
LICENSE	Complete, unmodified project license text.
docs/oss/attribution.md	Relevant component attribution entries.
docs/oss/licenses/	Complete, verbatim applicable standard license and companion texts.
docs/release.md	Concrete immutable release-link URLs and publication mechanics.

The contributor guide directs licensing, dependency, copied-code or asset, attribution, and release-document changes to the appropriate policy and owner. Preserve existing documentation ownership, agent commit and discovery rules, and Audita's retirement of standalone troubleshooting documentation. Record upstream base versions truthfully alongside repository adaptations; unrelated upstream changes are outside this adoption scope.

Relevant Attribution and License Texts

Create a canonical inventory covering upstream components incorporated into or distributed with Audita: relevant direct and transitive dependencies, copied code or assets, and applicable Go runtime notices. Determine inclusion from actual use and distribution, not merely presence in go.mod or classification as direct or indirect. Do not automatically include every development tool or test-only module.

Each component entry uses the five-field House Format:

1. Project name.
2. Upstream copyright statements, preserving their wording.
3. Applicable SPDX identifier or expression, when one exists.
4. Links to applicable local standard texts and upstream project-specific notices.
5. A source repository link identifying the exact imported commit.

Resolve component versions to their actual source commits. Upstream source and notice links use those commits, not version tags or moving branches. Preserve multiple copyright statements, licensing alternatives, and exceptions; record a selected licensing option when relevant without inventing an SPDX identifier.

Copy only applicable standard license texts and required companion texts into docs/oss/licenses/. Preserve complete wording and use recognizable filenames; multiple entries can share a text. Make companions directly reachable from each relevant entry, including GPLv3 where an LGPLv3 entry requires it. Inspect upstream file contents rather than assuming a file named LICENSE contains only standard wording.

Apply the upstream house interpretation accepting direct, commit-specific links for project-specific license and attribution notice reproduction. Do not add a blanket local-copy requirement or repeated approval solely because upstream terms use reproduction, inclusion, or copy language. Preserve required notices already present in incorporated source. Concrete obligations beyond notice reproduction, such as source supply or modified-file marking, receive their own applicable treatment and are recorded in the policy or affected entry when needed.

This inventory and format do not themselves certify license compatibility or resolve every possible distribution obligation. Resolve concrete uncovered issues before the affected use or distribution; do not reopen settled choices without such an issue.

Discoverability and Release Publication

End the README with these two statements:

Audita is licensed under the [GPL v3.0 or later](COPYRIGHT).

[Open Source attribution notices](docs/oss/attribution.md) are available.

Merge the licensing-related guidance from upstream Release Policy 1.2 into Audita's release policy. Each new checked-in release note and its hosted download page ends with links visibly labeled COPYRIGHT | LICENSE | ATTRIBUTION. Use absolute Gitea URLs to the three canonical files at the release's immutable tag or corresponding immutable source commit. This differs from dependency attribution links, which identify the exact imported upstream commit.

The release procedure owns the concrete URL pattern and how publication delivers that footer. Reuse the checked-in release note as the hosted release body through the release workflow where supported, avoiding separately maintained notice lists or release prose. Verify the publication plugin's supported configuration when implementing that integration; if it cannot consume the note directly, use the smallest supported publication mechanism that preserves the same content.

Validate future-tag paths against the candidate checkout during ordinary release preparation. A future tag need not already resolve remotely. Keep release success at source/tag push and treat asynchronous publication failures under the existing release correction procedure.

Ongoing Maintenance and Published History

Update affected attribution, source commits, and license texts alongside changes that add, remove, upgrade, copy, or change distribution of relevant components. Check the selected upstream source instead of assuming notices are unchanged. Git retains previous attribution versions.

Apply the new presentation convention prospectively. Do not retrofit v2.0.0 or older published tags, notes, binaries, or checksums. Current licensing statements do not change the grant recorded in an older tagged source tree. Any concrete historical omission discovered during inventory should receive deliberate handling under its applicable terms and Audita's release correction policy.

Work Required

• Adopt and tailor the OSS policy; merge related documentation ownership and release guidance while retaining Audita-specific decisions.
• Inspect actual incorporated and distributed components, establish their source revisions and notices, and create attribution entries and applicable texts.
• Add contributor navigation and the README statements once their destinations exist.
• Extend the release procedure with the immutable footer convention and connect hosted release content to the checked-in note through the publication workflow.
• Review affected links, standard-text fidelity, attribution evidence, policy references, and consistency with the existing release process. Validate the publication configuration at its affected boundary without creating a release solely to test this documentation change.

These are work areas, not an implementation sequence. Policy and attribution content form one coherent area; release publication integration is another. Detailed implementation steps can be planned separately.

Acceptance Criteria

• Audita has an adopted OSS policy with working repository references, accurate base-version metadata, and no leftover template setup instructions.
• Documentation ownership and contributor navigation identify the canonical licensing documents without duplicating their substantive content.
• Relevant incorporated and distributed components have evidence-based House Format entries, exact imported-commit links, and applicable standard and companion texts. Concrete uncovered obligations have a recorded treatment.
• The existing project grant and full license text remain consistent; no relicensing or unsupported claims of ownership are introduced.
• The README ends with the license and attribution statements.
• Future release preparation produces the immutable licensing footer in both the checked-in note and hosted body, with one maintained source for that content.
• Affected local links, intended future-tag paths, text copies, and publication configuration are checked with validation proportionate to the change.
• Published history and Audita's existing platform scope and release-success definition remain intact.

Scope Boundaries

This work introduces no mandatory scanner, full software bill of materials, recurring legal sign-off, additional human approval, publication-time network check, or CI wait. Ordinary attribution maintenance and release-document review are preparation work, not new release gates.

The formatting convention alone does not require separate downloadable license assets, source bundles, or a different binary package format. A concrete component obligation may need specific treatment, but is not a basis for inventing blanket requirements. No application code, dependency upgrade, prompt change, or general policy-suite rewrite is part of this feature.

Open Questions

No product or policy decisions remain open for this scope. Component-specific source revisions and notices, and the publication plugin's supported release-body mechanism, require verification during implementation. These are factual follow-up work, not additional approval gates; raise a decision only if that verification reveals a concrete unresolved obligation or a material publication tradeoff.